Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the contribution of air pollution to the increased incidence of hospital admissions for respiratory conditions over the last five years.

Exposure to short-lived air pollution episodes (over a few days or weeks) has been associated with increases in respiratory and cardiovascular disease events, potentially leading to increased risk of mortality and hospitalisation, and exacerbation of conditions, such as asthma.

Public Health England looked at the impact of two air pollution episodes (related to particulate matter, PM2.5) over a 10-day period in March and April 2014 (Macintyre et al., 2016). It was found that the total burden of emergency hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular causes associated with short-term exposure to PM2.5 was estimated to be around 1,500 across the United Kingdom (around 3.5% of total emergency respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions). Around 785 of these would be expected from more typical pollution levels at this time of year.